


Beyond the Looking Glass and What The Red King Found There

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-23
Updated: 2004-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:52:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for volta arovet</p>
    </blockquote>





	Beyond the Looking Glass and What The Red King Found There

**Author's Note:**

> Written for volta arovet

 

 

It started quite ordinarily, but then these things tend to do that. The Red King had been wandering through the forest in the seventh square, sometime before the game was to begin. After a long walk, he'd started to feel terribly sleepy and, being a King, he reasoned that he could certainly rest wherever he wished. So, he cleared a nice patch and he pulled out his nightcap and he settled down comfortably. The day was warm and pleasant, and the nearby flowers whispered in idle conversation and bread-and-butterflies swooped through the underbrush delicately, and it wasn't long before he'd nodded off right there and then.

It was then that his problems began. Or rather, it was a little time later, when he yawned and blinked his eyes and opened them to find the forest gone.

Now, you might think that this would be enough of a worry in itself, but, being from behind the looking glass, a change of place was not something too peculiar to the King. The fact that his clothes had been replaced by a strange assortment of odds and ends that looked anything but kingly was a little more disturbing, but what was worse was a terrible feeling he had. This place felt wrong, though he couldn't for the life of himself work out why.

Blinking in dismay, he pulled himself up and looked around. He appeared to be in some kind of square in the middle of a town. Carriages without horses moved quickly around a patch of grass and trees and flowers. People walked hurriedly around, barely looking at each other in their eagerness to get to somewhere else. Insects buzzed merrily along the flowerbeds, just as they had in the forest when he had fallen asleep, but he was quite amazed as to how they were constructed. Why, they were terribly thin and spindly things, black and brown with the occasional bright fleck of colour. There were no rockinghorse-flies, and no snapdragonfies, and certainly no bread-and-butter flies.

Blinking in bewilderment, the King leaned over to a rose that sat nodding in the sun, and asked, "Excuse me, but would happen to know which direction I should go to get back to my Queen? I seem to have gotten myself lost." When the rose didn't answer, he was puzzled, but then he realised that the flowerbeds were all soft. No wonder the flowers couldn't talk, they were asleep! What silly gardener had done that? He debated whether to attempt to pack down the flowerbeds, but decided that this would not be a awfully kingly thing to do. The Red King prided himself in being kingly no matter what the circumstances; even his nightcap had delicate little crowns embroidered on it lest people forget who it was they were watching sleep. Being kingly, the Red King decided that he could certainly discover a way back to the seventh square by himself, perhaps even before the game began. So he picked himself up and began to walk.

The walk was rather strange, he had to say. He strode down a street of houses that had a terrible sameness to them, and 'sameness' seemed to be a word that described his new surroundings all too well. The environment didn't change no matter how far he walked; the sidewalk stayed the same colour, there were no sudden streams to row down, the people he saw all trotted along with their heads down. It was all very depressing and he felt uncomfortable. Perhaps he would never get home! Perhaps he would be stuck in this dreadful monotonous world forever? He was just working himself up to being very frightened indeed, when he realised that in his dismay he'd walked up to one of the houses, opened the door, and walked right in without even appreciating what he was doing! Curious, and grateful for something a little different to look at, he wandered the house until he found himself almost pulled towards a certain room.

It was a drawing room, he ascertained, with a coffee table and an empty fireplace, and a couple of armchairs and on one of the armchairs, curled up asleep, a little girl.

He was marvelling at this, and wondering why he'd been drawn to this place, when the door to the side opened and an old woman ambled in and looked towards him. "Ah, it's you," she said, nodding. "Greetings."

The Red King blinked at that. "I don't believe I know you", he said, though he could not say for certain whether what he believed was true.

The old woman smiled. "Indeed, we didn't meet formally. You were fast asleep, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee cautioned me against waking you." The old lady shuffled forward and made an awkward curtsy. "I am Alice, your majesty."

Deciding that he couldn't possibly be brusque to a lady who was being so respectful, the Red King nodded his head graciously. "In that case, it is a pleasure to meet you, Alice. Might you know where I am at the moment, and perhaps even how I got here?"

Alice smiled wisely. "Certainly I know. You are in the land beyond the looking glass, and you are here because I told an old story that came from a dream to my Granddaughter, the girl who sleeps on the armchair over there. Now she has her own dreams, and she has dreamed you here."

The Red King was astonished. "I think surely you must be mistaken, Alice. If anyone is dreaming, I believe it must be me. After all, the last thing I remember was falling asleep, was it not? I am quite sure that I am more than just the dream of a little girl."

Alice looked saddened. "That is a question, is it not? Who is the dreamer, and who is the dreamed? But it is not as important a question as you might think, dear King."

"Not important?" The King frowned at her. "Why, you are saying that I will only exist for as long as your Granddaughter stays asleep!"

"And you are saying that I will only exist for as long as you remain asleep."

The Red King nodded at that. "That is certainly true. It seems that one of us is doomed, no matter what the outcome." And he blinked rapidly, for the world was beginning to seem ever so slightly misty, and the girl on the armchair had began, it seemed, to stir.

But Alice just smiled. "Not at all, dear King," she said, and the world began to turn grey about the edges. "You are the lucky one here, I know this to be true." Her body began to grow fainter as the King stared. "For I will die one day, that is assured, and one day soon." And then her face began to fade. "But I've told your story too many times to count, and my granddaughter will tell it too, in her own way, so you see..."

And the world disappeared, and all that was left was a mouth, stretched into a smile. "So you see, in the end, you will never die."

*******

Then they woke up

But who was it, you ask? Who was the dreamer?

Well, what do you think?

 


End file.
